


every me, every you

by sollys



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bits of fluff, Character Study, F/F, Rape/Non-con Elements, Slow Build, Triggers, Violence, graphic depictions of sex, martine dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-04-28 03:28:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5076058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sollys/pseuds/sollys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Seated on a wooden, broken chair, with ephemeral thoughts of the life she’s about to leave behind, hair sticking to her sweaty face like second skin, looking straight into the inexorable eyes of her captors with as much defiance she can muster, Sameen (who she could never be) and Shaw (who she always has been) die with the valor of a soldier who’s served his rightful time in hell.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 'cause there's nothing else to do

**Author's Note:**

> My God, this took so long.  
> But I wanted to say this story in three parts.  
> Also, I'm sorry for any mistakes but English ain't my native language. Thank you for reading in advance.

_It strikes her sometimes that the world, a tailspin of evil fighting outnumbered good, quite possibly doesn’t deserve the kindness and the interest of people like them – though she thinks of herself nothing but a human wired crossly, filaments of feelings wrapped up in ice, the only things that actually separate her self-definition from that of a machine._

_Everybody has a flaw -_

_(She remembers a quite day in the library, her hands busying themselves with the only creature in the world that she can actually_ admittedly feel _for, Bear, that Root said as much, behind the beginning of her confinements, languid tongue curling around those exact words, for whom to hear she doesn’t know ; but that is all irrelevant)_

_\- she thinks her whole existence might actually be hers._

_Harold Finch, gallant and dandy, everything but immodest, at first tries to make her_ believe, _but Sameen – no,_ Shaw _, is no less than halcyon (not in the happy kind of way but the carefree one), so when he sits her down to talk about morals and human lives and_ compassion _, Shaw nods because it’s what he desires even though nothing stays with her in the end._

Uncharitable, _one day he describes her, but she just stares at him blankly, until he squirms uncomfortably in his chair, and turns around to pretend he’s absorbed in the screen of his computer._

_That day passes in a blur; she works on an insufferable number and incapacitates the perps, although if it were up to her she would have more likely coalesced her pent – up frustration (from lack of action), with the muzzle of her gun forming a straight line to center mass –_ morals be damned.

 

 _When she returns to the library, to do the daily debrief and bid her farewells (to the_ dog), _Finch, in a moment of sudden epiphany, says that he’s sorry for his earlier description of her._

_(It’s strange, because she thought the word was apt, but she supposes the gaze that followed after his high – end vocabulary didn’t pass on the sentiment.)_

_He says it like she even_ cared _enough to be insulted._

_(She didn’t.)_

* * *

 

 

 

They ask her eventually, (not her, but rather a shell of who she used to be, a more desultory version of old self), about the man in the glasses that tries to fix the world and is ultimately going to fail, (they tell her that), they ask and ask and ask, and under the weak luminescence of the room, and the chatoyant eyes of Martine, she answers what she knows to be true right now.

 

A nerd, free man’s leader, her (former) boss, and the most educated man she’s ever met, also one of the hardest to trace.

 

They ask her if she ever did trace him, they ask her where he is, and she answers that she doesn’t know, (not because she still has strength in her to protect him – _them,_ but for the exact reason that she confides in _what she knows to be true right now),_ because she really doesn’t.

 

Martine brushes her fingers along her jaw, after beleaguering her continuously, _attacking_ her with utmost force as punishment. Lands her lips just where her soft fingertips had been seconds before, and she closes her eyes, wondering if in the life she left behind she would have fought back.

 

( _She_ would have.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_John, covered in blood, and thick cellophane tinted with raging madness surrounding him tight, tries to take revenge, tries to burn the world down, all because of the name recently engraved on top of a tombstone._

_She doesn’t understand where the feeling oozes from, but she comprehends_ the effect, _indulges in her own spontaneous anger when she finds out, that the olive colored detective from the New York City Police Department, 8 th precinct, and one of the very short list of persons she came to _liking, _Joss Carter, is dead._

_It doesn’t last long, before she starts…thinking (worrying) more about how much danger John will have found himself neck – deep in._

 

 _Evocative, and definitely_ right _, she enlists Root’s help to save him, ignoring Harold’s hesitance in favor of saving what’s left of the man in the suit before he cascades down the chaos of his own making._

_(When it’s all done, and he leaves without a goodbye, Shaw doesn’t feel sad, but slightly disappointed, in him she’s certain, but then she remembers_ – not everyone has the capacity to watch the world fall apart and remain calm in the aftermath.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Do you know what the verb _embasan_ means?” In their early  joyful encounters (old life, before she was broken), _Martine_ would have added her name in the end, the one that doesn’t belong to her now ( _Sam-, Sa-, Shaw?),_ and _she_ would have spit on her _._

She stares dumbly back at the blonde’s dark brown, yet cold eyes.

 

“Obviously, of course, the word isn’t _English,”_ she continues, proud of herself. “A dialect from Philippines, or something like that,” she shakes her hands dismissingly as she proceeds to strip Shaw of her dirty, over – used tank top, the one _they_ handed her, (leaving her exposed and so very affected, _it’s been so long_ ), and then almost with a motherly (or _something else_ that crosses her mind evanescent as ever) quality, dressing her up again with a heavy sweater, too heavy, (leaving her suffocated and so very affected, and _it’s. been. so. long)._

Martine stops to soothe out some creases on the garment. Stares at her creation. _Hers and the wrinkled man’s called Greer._

“It means you’re gonna take a little bath, _with your clothes on.”_ She thinks she knows what that would lead to with so many heavy clothes on, _hypothermia, drowning maybe._ Did they finally decide to get rid of the abomination they mustered?

 

She curls her hands into fists, swallows down the bile that’s rising in her throat at the thought of torture, and asks with a tone which sounds desperate even in her own ears. “Why?”

 

Martine abruptly slaps her.

 

She almost falls, exhaustion thrumming inside her combined with disability, but the blonde woman surprisingly catches her, and then sighs as if she’s about to explain something she’s explained a hundred times before to a petulant child.

 

She cradles her cheek, and steps closer. “Because you were uncooperative Shaw.”

 

She says it and _she_ (Shaw?) shudders at the foreign word.

 

“I’ll give you another chance, if you’d like,” she whispers after, leans even closer to Shaw _,_ with her piercing eyes and encompassing physique, and her scent engulfing her in a state of near haze. ( _Broken, broken, and broken, but in another lifetime she would have cut that bitch’s hand off). “_ Where is _John Reese?”_

Harbinger of her own disastrous fate, Shawrepeats her earlier response, even though she knows it’s not satiating enough for Martine. “I don’t know.”

 

Backs off, opens the door and looks back at her with harsh eyes, resembling nothing of the warm gaze she had before. “ _Embasan.”_

* * *

 

 

 

_“Root?”_

_She barely keeps her eyes from drooping closed, but takes the call anyway because it’s too late for Root to actually be fucking with her. So either she had changed her tactics and decided to push at the seams whilst Shaw was dazed from sleep and oblivious to the world under the crepuscular, dim light of the moon fleeting in through her luxurious windows – or something was wrong and Shaw should know to just fucking place the sewer kit next to the door already._

_“Sweetie,” Root breathes from within the earpiece, her voice lacking the usual dulcet aesthetic that Shaw had gotten so used to perceiving as a moiety of the woman herself. (The other equal part is layers, layers, layers that Shaw realizes no one can pierce through unless the scintilla of_ her _wants them to). “Were you sleeping?” (There’s a lingering something in her voice, that Shaw can’t quite place.)_

_“Does it matter?” Eloquence has never been her thing._

_“Yes, Sameen.” She sounds so goddamn absolute, serious and Shaw almost wants_ (needs) _to throw the phone at the wall ahead, shake that disgusting feeling of being_ cared for _from her shoulders. (Once, her parents told her together, in unison, and she nodded, hoping it was enough for them. She knew it shouldn’t be, but they still smiled at her after a long ineffable minute.)_

_(The lingering something nags at her, again and again.)_

_“What the fuck do you want, Root?” She doesn’t really mean to sound so rancid, but she’ll be damned if she regrets it one bit._

_There’s silence at the other end of the line – she’s come to associate that with something akin to hurt (?), for Root never misses a beat but now only her ragged breathing does the talking for her. (Shaw does_ not care. _She’s fucking_ tired _, and interrupted from the first good nap she’s had in_ ages _.)_

_(Ever since that sidewalk and the grotesque image of_ her, _looking as if the impending doom will swallow them whole.)_

“ _Nothing, Sam_.” _She ends up whispering in a voice not even close to sonorous, but it somehow feels even more_ wrong, _and Shaw berates herself for knowing Root enough to distinguish that. “Go back to sleep.”_

_She should probably push, ask, be there. She can’t._

_She can’t be_ Sameen _for Root, perhaps only Shaw in a strained way of calling it, but never_ Sameen.

 

_She disconnects the call and falls back to bed._

_(_ Limerence _, she read once in one of Harold’s books,_ the state of being infatuated with someone. _It’s a chilly, rainy Saturday night, petrichor feeling her senses, and it’s the only word she can use to describe that lingering something.)_

* * *

 

 

 

They make her call.

 

( _They forced her back then to swallow fifteen bullets, or at least they seemed to be. Fifteen bullets because that was how many she tried to empty on Martine during her first escape attempt. Fifteen because that was how many a G22 could hold, the useless gun she stole from the first guy she choked to death. But they’d already burned her index finger (still healing), and it’s hard to shoot with your middle one._

_Martine punched her, hard, guards surrounded her, and ultimately she grabbed her chin and kissed her, hard, bruising, and_ Shaw _felt fucking sick. She bit those foreign lips apart, until Martine pistol whipped her._

_Fifteen bullets. Fifteen not – so – normal bullets that after she painstakingly had to gulp down as they forced her mouth open, and stabbed her foot, after they’d reached her stomach and were somehow dissipating, she felt the poison spread like ivy, and bit someone’s finger to keep from producing a sound._

_But her nemesis, all of a sudden penetrated her gut with a sharpened combat knife, and_ Shaw _tumbled down in a cacophony of screams that left her vulnerable_ , _and_ ashamed _._ )

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They don’t ask about _her._ They make her call.

 

They promise a repeat performance of that fifteen – bullet session if she doesn’t, and they make, _make, **make**_ her call.

 

( _She, the Shaw that a tall brunette woman called Sameen_ would have taken the pain over risking uncovering _her._ Her serene, infectious smile that _Sameen (who she could never be)_ and _Shaw (who she always has been)_ could never escape. That harmonious assemblage of a voice that _she hated._ The soothing sound of her hums, and her chuckles. She despised it all. Her resplendent eyes, her sunny disposition – but never _her, her, her._

_God,_ how much it ached sometimes knowing that she could never be _just_ _Sameen.)_

 

Martine smirks from afar while she swallows with difficulty, and picks up the phone.

 

It’s all scripted, timed and _forced._

 

After, Martine approaches her, kisses the side of her mouth and tells her it’s time to go. “You did well, Shaw.”

 

(“ _Shaw?”_

 

Rushes over her, drowns her, makes her see phosphenes as if rubbing her eyes, and reminds her of who she used to be.)

 

  _God,_ how much it ached sometimes knowing that she could never be _just Sameen._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They take her to a safehouse.

 

It unravels in front of her like a series of new, unknown images, and the first thing that strikes her is the fact that (from what she can remember of her old life), it looks moderately _normal._

There’s a bed, to the left, and a plethora of large, luxurious ( _key word ; luxurious),_ windows. Further inside, when they allow her to venture, she finds a kitchen, a fridge full of weapons and grenades.

 

(So mocking, ironic, how they put all the arsenals in plain view, ready for her to use, because they’re not even _remotely_ scared of her. _They think she won’t touch them.)_

_(They’re right._ )

 

A small bathroom – that’s all.

 

She steps in the penumbra which a wall forms against the light of dawn, and looks at a man she doesn’t recognize.

 

“Where’s Martine?” She asks, because it’s been so many months, and she’s the only one she’s seen the whole time. (The only one who stuck with her til the end of _Shaw.)_ The one that touched her and when Shaw _,_ did something right, gave her the benefit of a break, of a new shirt, the reward f a bath, or perhaps some water.

 

(Amongst other things. Things _she – who she used to be,_ would have been ashamed of. She doesn’t talk about these things.)

 

“ _Hell,_ probably,” the man grumbles. Then, adds, at Shaw’s look of confusion, (she’s so _slow now),_ almost softly, “Martine is dead, Shaw.” (He reminds her of someone.)

 

Shaw blinks – once – twice.

 

She nods and absconds to hide herself in the bathroom. She vomits, again, and again, retches herself open and bare for the toilet to see, pulls out slowly every piece of her insides that didn’t belong to her own weak entirety, cackles blood, screams for all the times she screamed back _then,_ because _Martine is dead, and everything she left behind belongs to her, the scars, the pain, the fractured organs, the kisses, the touches, the bruises, the bite marks, the warmth, the cold, everything, should take the trip to Hades along with her._

_(She left behind Shaw.)_

When she gets out, after half an hour, or more or less, she’s lost sense of time, he stands there, hands crossed in front of him, posture straight and professional.

 

Only the handkerchief hanging from his palm is out of place.

 

( _She’s ready, oh so ready, she’ll swallow it, and when it reaches the end of her, they will put their dirty gloved hands inside her mouth, grab the edge of it because it’s too long to fit whole, they’ll spray something down her throat, it’ll burn and she’ll scream, scream, scream until her throat goes dry and hoarse, and they’ll pull it out. Then again. She knows the drill like clockwork.)_

She’s almost filled with alacrity to get it over with.

 

The man approaches, but it’s just him, there’s no chair to tie her to with tightened steel, and he doesn’t wear gloves. She stands still. ( _She_ would have already thought of 34 different escape routes _.)_

He raises the handkerchief, and despite her best effort she flinches. But she doesn’t move because if she does, there will always be a burly, and rough man who will dislocate her shoulder.

 

(She knows the drill like clockwork.)

 

Won’t there?

 

The unnamed man subtly wipes her chin and jaw. When she opens her eyes again, she notices the handkerchief stained with red.

 

He throws it away in a trashcan she hadn’t even noticed, (there’s a table too, three chairs, an easel – _how did she miss all these?_ She knows how), and smiles not viciously.

 

Then he extends his hand.

 

“I’m Peter.”

 

Shaw stands annihilated and so very alone and so very weak.

 

The man’s eyes soften. Grabs her hand gently, (she didn’t think there was another level of gentleness besides Martine’s painful slaps and wicked caresses), and clasps it in his own.

 

“You,” he states.

 

“You are Sameen.”

 

_(She’s not she’s not she’s not. She’s not not not not not.)_

_(“Sameen?” She whispered. “Are you asleep?”_

_“No.”_

_“Could you… could you sleep on the bed with me?”_

_“No.”_

_“I promise I’ll behave.” She states, ignoring_ Shaw’s _curt answer. “I’m just cold Sam.”_

_“No, Root, now shut up and go to sleep, unless you want to lie down with your injuries facing the floor.”_

_”Okay Sameen.” )_

Something must show on her face because he raises an eyebrow. “No?” He asks. “Shaw, then?”

 

( _“Shaw,” Martine breathed. Pressing her harder against the wall. Fingers lost somewhere between her legs, and Shaw shivered like nothing._

_“Did she touch you like this Shaw?” She murmured, apolaustic as always._

_She flicked her fingers._

_“No.” Shaw croaked. Martine, satisfied, started touching her in earnest._

Because she – the old her, didn’t let her, _remained unspoken. )_

 

Martine is dead. Everything she left behind belongs to her, the scars, the pain, the fractured organs, the kisses, the touches, the bruises, the bite marks, the warmth, the cold, everything, should take the trip to Hades along with her.

(She left behind Shaw _.)_

She is not Shaw.

 

“Hm.” He says, and _does her face betray her that much?_

 

She waits.

 

“How aboutyour full name _?”_ He asks later. “That is who you are after all.”

 

(Is it?)

 

She speaks for the first time, “Sameen and Shaw?”

 

“No,” he laughs. _“Sameen Shaw.”_

 

She never realized she is _both._

 


	2. pucker up for heaven's sake, there's never been so much at stake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She writes down REFINERY even though she knows it’s not the right answer, but she still does it because vertically, there’s OIL crossing it, and just the thought of it makes her shudder more pleasantly than searching for meaningless words to describe meaningless things._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost there.  
> Also thank you for anyone who's actually reading this, _this_ is my first fanfiction.  
>  And, don't worry, the explicit stuff is all coming up in the third chapter.

_“Are you sure this is what you want Sameen?” She asks, hair tousled and disheveled from the veering wind. The sky is covered in clouds, trees around them dance to the wild rhythms of the air, and she, ever so rhapsodic, has tears brimming on the inside of her eyelids, like waterdrops waiting to fall in the chaos of rain._

_Respledent and strong, the answer escapes her before she’s even processed it._

_“No.”_

(For all who haven’t moved to the melodies of beating hearts, comes the caprice urge to feel.)

_“That is not enough.”_

She _is not enough._

 

* * *

 

 

 _Shaw,_ is reborn, rised from the debris of a fallen, seven – stories high buiding, like a phoenix breathing through its ashes, ready to live again. With shadows spreading behind her like serpents curl up the trees, with _blood_ , rippling under her boots and running down the floors, through the cracks and the recesses of white, glittering tiles, with every step she takes.

 

 _Shaw,_ is alive and inhaling and _feeling,_ freedom, power and anger.

 

 _Shaw,_ is _Shaw_ , is _Sameen_ Shaw, but no one dares to say _that_ name out loud.

 

 _Shaw,_ with bruises up her arms, and scars specking her hips, her firm back and solid muscles.

 

_Shaw, with a 5.75 machine gun bullet reading DEATH, tattooed just under the nape of her neck, and stretching down to the wide area beneath her shoulder blades, because she is._

* * *

 

Peter, comes in.

 

Peter _explains._

Peter explains that she is Sameen Shaw, that she is _not_ free, but she is _almost_ that. He tells her that she needs to get back in shape, but all she can feel is her stomach twisting at the mere idea of touching a gun.

 

Peter tells her she won’t need to. _Not yet._ First, she needs to get her _mind_ back in shape.

 

* * *

 

 

_(When she’s alone at nights, looking at the majestic New York skyline through her windows, she tries to remember._

_She tries to capture why she can still be Shaw._

Sameen _remains out of arm’s length.)_

* * *

 

Peter comes in one rainy, stormy night, his black, slick hair drenched through and his expensive jeans mudstained. He looks normal. He looks the most normal she’s seen in ages.

He hurries through the door when she opens, (they’ve agreed that he won’t use the key he has unless it’s _absolutely necessary,_ just to give her _another_ sense of normalcy), dishevelled and shivering, and she steps aside but doesn’t speak.

 

“God,” he starts, his words clipped and wavering. “It’s cold out there.”

 

She can see through the window that the awful wind hasn’t abated since the morning, and the dark, ochrous pallor of the sky only adds up to the unpleasant mood.

 

“You’re not wearing your coat.” She states and _tries_ to contribute to a feeble attempt at being _ordinary._

He shoots her a crooked grin, and proceeds to remove something from under his shirt. “I brought you crosswords.”

 

She stares at him dumbly.

 

“Let’s begin.” He sighs.

 

* * *

 

 

( _She remembers Root writhing underneath her, trembling on her fingers like there’s no tomorrow and biting down on her own supple, bottom lip til it loses its color and then splits. There’s a drop of blood staining her pale pink colored mouth. It reminds her of a juicy, juicy steak and she’s suddenly strangely compelled to bend down and lick it off._

_Root screams loudly and leans up to mold her body with Shaw’s._

_“Sameen,” frantic, frantic and desperate._

_There’s a bullet standing on the nightstand, bloodstained,_ like Root’s lip _and shaking from the force of Shaw’s movements along with the bed,_ like Root _. Removed from her body just an hour ago. She chooses to focus on that instead of staring at Root, who like a siren draws her in with a string of long curses and beautiful needy whimpers._

 

Selfish, _that’s what she is.)_

 

* * *

 

 

The crosswords are hard, at first. She recognizes the definitions, processes the information as she reads them but her brain short – circuits as it comes to say the _word,_ to describe it all in letters and voice. She’s never been good at words, Shaw, because her fists have always been the only mean of communication she’s ever needed. Unraveling like spider webs, the crosswords and the questions envelope her in a frenzy, and sometimes sentences spill down the pages before she’s able to grasp them with her fingers. Slipping always, as does her _sanity_.

 

Peter, stoic but soothing, stays seated on the chair next to her, reading a newspaper instead of helping her figure it out. He doesn’t speak.

 

One day, she tells him. That she’s not used to talking or using her tongue instead of her body to get what she wants. _That is not Shaw._

 

He asks her who that is.

 

Shaw freezes. Her blood pumps under her skin and she suddenly feels overwhelmed, tense and so _weak._ Her hand tightens on the pencil and she hears cries, echoing resonant. She hears dulcet voices, footprints on the snow that she gets lost into on her way to a car, while hearing gunshots from the room she was used to sharing with a blonde woman.

 

“That’s me, Shaw.” He cuts through thick ice like a shovel, comes into drag her out of dark deep waters.

 

It’s not him.

 

She stays stock still for a moment, and then lets her dark orbs travel back to the page in front of her. Shaw finds 12 – horizontal, eight letters, and wills it to shift.

 

When it doesn’t, she pushes the graphite point of the pencil down to the wrinkly thin sheet of the booklet, and fills in the blanks.

 

_She writes down REFINERY even though she knows it’s not the right answer, but she still does it because vertically, there’s OIL crossing it, and just the thought of it makes her shudder more pleasantly than searching for meaningless words to describe meaningless things._

* * *

 

_(The bullet on the nightstand is a 5.75 machine gun’s silver bullet.)_

* * *

 

She’s thankful, (sometimes), for Peter’s perception skills and wit. He intervenes in the most fortunate ways, like he understands more implications during a conversation or a long silence than is strictly possible. For example, when she stands in front of the mirror and looks at her scrawny form with self – loathing and disgust, for an extended period of time, as if she’s ready to spit on the reversed image of herself.

 

“Stop checking yourself out.” He states with playfulness in his voice that she’s not sure she knows where it stems for. He is not the Samaritan agent she expected. He is not _Martine._ “It’s bad luck.”

 

He grabs her arm and pulls her out of the bathroom kindly.

 

_She never looks at the mirror again._

 

* * *

 

“You remind me of someone.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“His name was Cole.”

 

“ _Was_?”

 

“He’s dead.”

 

Silence.

 

“I remind you of someone dead?”

 

Silence.

_“I’m offended.”_

 

* * *

 

 

The easel stays untouched. More of a decorating element than anything else. She never uses _it_. She uses the _rag_ to dust it off anyway.

 

Peter has learned not to ask.

 

* * *

 

 

( _“You draw?”_

_It’s a late, late afternoon, and_ she _is stretched out on a couch_ she _is most definitely_ not supposed to be stretched out on.

 

“ _Did you break in again?” Shaw asks, (rather patiently if you ask her), and shrugs off her coat to hang it on by the door. She gets rid of her boots, too, before she finally becomes aware of the question splayed out in front of her._

_Root doesn’t even attempt to look innocent. “No?” She offers deadpan._

_Shaw makes a show of taking out her very_ shiny _,_ verysharp _, blade out of its holster wrapped around her upper arm, just above her_ cubital fossa, and _sets it down on the wooden table with a thunk._ “ _How about you give me one reason not to kick your sorry ass out of my apartment right now?”_

 

_Root smirks like a demon, with glinting eyes and wings threatening to escape behind her, and a body that screams for attention, covered in really tight black jeans and a grey splotched, baggy sweater with holes that leave little to the imagination._

_“No.” She raises slowly, all long loose limbs and smothering hazel irises, and begins to deminish the distance between them, even though Shaw’s glare has stabbed her dead a hundred times already. “Because,” she drawls, taking confident, but cautious steps towards a motionless Shaw. “First of all, I have none..”_

_She comes within touching distance, within a_ I am breathing in your fucking face _distance, and Shaw’s right hand twitches._

_She stands her ground._

_“I don’t give a shit.” She spits._

_“And second…” Root leans in ignoring her completely and where Shaw was ready to wipe that smug look off her face, she’s all of a sudden engulfed by a haze, induced by Root’s lavender scent mixed with a cottony sense radiating off of the wool, old sweater and…paint? She feels off balance and so easily_ manipulated.

_“My ass would be all but sorry if it got kicked by you, Sameen.”_

_Shaw’s eyes snap closed involuntarily as Root steps front once more, trapping her against the table that she now wishes was made of feathers so that she met no resistance in moving further back, away from the tall, mocking brunette._

_She manages to growl. “Root...” It’s a warning but she knows even before she articulates it that it’s bound to get lost somewhere in between the force of their mingled breaths._

_Root places her hands on either side of Shaw on the table, further trapping her, lips finding that sensitive spot under her jaw and unsurprisingly, remains undeterred. “So,” she says. “Do you draw?” She leans up and breathes practically in Shaw’s warm and begrudgingly open mouth._

_“Shut up.”_

She doesn’t notice it was _hers,_ the _colorstained_ sweater that Root had been wearing until it’s midnight and Root’s leaving with her leather jacket serving as the only top and the grey wool material neatly folded on the couch.

 

_They don’t stay the night. They shouldn’t even stick around with each other til night arrives to begin with._

She has this crushing urge to paint.)

 

* * *

 

 

(She is not stupid. Slow now, but not an idiot. Two months and she’s realized this is her old apartment.

 

She tells Peter, and he doesn’t say anything.

 

 _It’s enough of a confirmation for her_.)

 

* * *

 

 

When she achieves finishing off a few of the easiest crosswords, Peter tells her that they need to up the difficulty.

 

“Why?” She asks, and then fretfully remembers what happens after this and prepares herself for the hit.

 

Peter moves closer.

 

“Because we need to move on.”

 

_If he notices how her muscles go from all clenched to guardedly relaxed, he doesn’t say._

_(She’s grateful.)_

* * *

 

_Shaw,_ is reborn through the alphabet and words, and that’s why she is different.

 

 _Shaw’s_ core material _, Shaw’s_ basical, structural, and functional cell isnow knowledge, and technique, words and wary communication.

 

The first brick is who she is, and that’s an _Axis II Personality Disorder_ patient. That’s why she is also somehow the _same._

_Shaw,_ is reborn.

 

_Sameen remains at arm’s length._

* * *

 

“10 letters, vertical. _High – level, untyped and interpreted programming language.”_

“Well shit.”

 

“You don’t know that?”

 

“Why, Shaw _you_ do?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Oh really?”

 

“JavaScript.”

 

“ _Well shit.”_

Silence.

 

“How?”

 

_Silence._

 

* * *

_(It was cold, and she was bored, and_ she _decides it’s time to get a hacking 101 lesson._

_That’s how.)_

* * *

 

One day, after she’s found the solution to a particularly difficult crossword, he rewards her with a night off. He bought her a small, but comfortable couch a while back, and now he’s helping her maneuver it around til it’s somehow perpendicular to the bed.

 

He opens the takeout bag and opens a container to hand it to her, but apparently it’s too hot. He hisses and almost drops it but Shaw catches it mid – air, which _unsurprisingly, surprises_ them both.

 

“Have you been exercising behind my back?” He asks with a teasing smile, although she can distinguish the seriousness in the ticks and lows of his voice.

 

“No.”

 

He narrows his eyes but shrugs. “Okay.”

 

He plunges his thumb in his mouth to soothe the burning pain.

 

_She smiles faintly because it’s almost a déjà vu._

* * *

 

_(“Okay, okay, food.”_

_Shaw rolls her eyes as Root rushes off to the subway car to get the bags she forgot. She fumbles around, quick movements, almost falls on Harold’s chair in her haste to not miss the opening credits of the stupid movie they’re about to watch._

_She opens one of the bags, tears open the first container that supposedly hosts Shaw’s very welcome steak, and practically shoves it in the shorter woman’s face as her face crumbles in pain, holding her thumb like a hundred bees bit on it._

_Shaw laughs so hard she feels her abs straining._

_Root misses the opening credits.)_

* * *

 

Peter tells her about the outside world, tells her it’s almost spring, and that where he lives just outside New York  there are lots of flowerbeds standing out from concrete pavements, on small patches of wet earth floors.

 

He tells her that it’s spring but the wind is behaving like it’s Autumn and he _talks talks talks, and she listens listens listens_ until –

 

“And _God_ Sameen, Central Park this time of the year is so beautiful!”

 

Shaw’s internal tumble down, spill through a hole on her stomach that leaves her bottomless and empty, grappling around for an imaginery support that will never come.

 

_She is not Sameen._

* * *

 

( _Her feet hurt, and her lungs feel thick with nothingness because there is no air left to suck as_ she’ _s standing there, taking it all._

_But she has to do this, has to breathe without oxygen, has to speak with no tongue._

_She can’t be who Root needs her to be. Doesn’t want to._

_“Are you sure this is what you want Sameen?” She asks, hair tousled and disheveled from the veering wind. The sky is covered in clouds, trees around them dance to the wild rhythms of the air, and she, ever so rhapsodic, has tears brimming on the inside of her eyelids, like waterdrops waiting to fall in the chaos of rain._

_Respledent and strong, the answer escapes her before she’s even processed it._

_“No.”_

(For all who haven’t moved to the melodies of beating hearts, comes the caprice urge to feel.)

_“That is not enough.”_

She _is not enough.)_

* * *

 

_(It was 7:00 p.m, in the middle of Central Park the day she’d said it.)_

* * *

 

Sameen, remains at arm’s length.

 

_She is not Sameen._


	3. in the shape of things to come, too much poison come undone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You’re not safe here.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Peter…” She stops because Sebastian closes his eyes when she speaks his name, looking pained. “What are you going to do?” She asks instead._
> 
>  
> 
> _There's a long, undue silence, before he takes a seat next to her, on the very same bench she'd been sitting next to Peter a while ago._
> 
>  
> 
> _“I’m going to have a chat with one of your old friends.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this was getting too long and I had to add another chapter.  
> Although as you can see, we're getting to the core of things.  
> We're welcoming Root to the equation last chapter. (Which is definitely gonna be a long one.)

Nothing ever runs smoothly. Shaw knows because she’s lived enough to know.

 

* * *

 

 

They want her to attend a boxing game. The sky is a cloudless expanse that stretches all around, and as her gaze lingers towards the sun, daring herself to keep her eyes open against the unbearable light, she mutters a reluctant “okay”, because it’s the only way they’ll leave her alone for a while.

 

Peter is something akin to a _friend_ to her, but there’s a huge part of the bridge he’d managed to build between them burnt, and anything that passes by gets swallowed by the endless darkness underneath. She’d like to inform him sometime, that she’d rather her name was just _Shaw,_ but she doesn’t want to take undue advantage of his charity. The man _tries,_ really, _really_ hard.

 

In the situation she’s stuck in, friends or company come along just about as often as lottery wins, which is not much, _basically._

 

Not that she needs them anyway. She’s never been one for friendships – and it’s not like there was anyone ever joined at the hip or whatever.

 

But now she’s different, remember?

 

The crosswords end quickly, like drinking water in the desert but miscalculating how much you’ve got left. Because if she’d been a bit more _attentive,_ a bit smarter perhaps, she would have spent hours and hours on words that she already knew were needed, just to delay the inevitable that now comes driving over her in a heated rush.

 

It’s time for some _real_ training.

 

* * *

 

 

The boxing game leaves her nauseous and aching in places she hasn’t even touched. Her brain feels like it might swell beyond the capacity of her skull, and her stomach lurches with every step she takes on the busy New York pavement. It doesn’t help that the one aiding her stay upright is someone she doesn’t even remotely recognise, and she thinks right about now, Peter’s kindness wouldn’t go amiss.

 

A well – built man practically shoves her in the apartment when he opens the door, but instead of losing her step and falling down, she falls on a warm, solid body that holds both her arms like she might collapse any moment now. (She _will.)_

 

It’s Peter, with a black, warm blouse tightened around his upper body and curling up around his neck, toning his muscles. Shaw gulps down because this feeling is different. Peter is a young man, with icy green eyes and incredibly red lips, and when she looks at him now, having to raise her head more than slightly, she’s reminded of someone else entirely. But he is not staring back at her, rather, he shoots a withering glare to the man who manhandled her just seconds ago.

 

Shaw wonders if it’s weakness that she wants to rest her forehead on his comforting, cashmere – covered chest.

 

_It probably is._

* * *

 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers, when she’s midway filling a cup of water in the kitchen. She almost doesn’t hear him, due to the distance and the constant pounding of water hitting porcelain. She feels like she maybe knows what the apology is for, but she also feels like she doesn’t want to hear it.

 

The water has already filled the cup to the brim, and is now falling back on the sink, like the Niagara waterfalls.

 

“What for?” She asks, and trusts him to listen up.

 

“That I let them take you to that horrible match.”

 

There’s a silence between them that lies on Shaw’s tanned skin like poison, seeps through her bones and paralyzes her brain. “You could have stopped it?”

 

He continues to be silent in that chilly way of his, but then suddenly he rises and the couch squeaks, and it’s enough to shake her up, drop the water on her t – shirt and send the cup spiralling in pieces on the floor. She shuts down the water spray after the initial shock, but looks down almost apathetically to face broken shards.

 

Peter comes to the saving, as always, and swipes it all away with a broomstick she wasn’t even aware she has.

 

When all is done and it’s cleared up, and Peter still hasn’t answered the question, she shifts her eyes to him, and mutters with all the courage she’s got left ;

 

“I want to be _Shaw.”_

* * *

 

The first gun she touches is also the last one for that week, partly because the minute she does it falls off her trembling hands and also because it makes her straight out vomit on the handler.

 

The next week, and the week after that, driving through blindspots and roads without anything even a mile close to technology, Peter and some others lead her to a warehouse that smells like cinnamon, and she runs laps, non – stop.

 

When she gets exhausted, ( _soon after),_ she falls down, and hits her head in the process.

 

Peter calls her a butthead, and a prideful monstrosity, but it’s the first time she’s laughed in _months._

* * *

 

They percieve the fact that she hasn’t reached a state of parched delirium in quite a few days, as moderately good.

 

Peter, and his other friend, _Sebastian,_ tell her that she’s one step closer to being _Shaw,_ but she struggles to believe them.

 

_Nonetheless, it’s better than sitting around, searching through the remnants of her old self to find usable material._

* * *

 

She does push – ups and sit – ups next, slowly at first, and picking up the pace later. She politely asks Sebastian if he can bring her lunch here, so that she doesn’t have to stop training and he politely answers back, that _no, I am not your barista._

If she does the next round of laps with more force and speed than necessary, it’s because of him and he knows, but only smirks and claps her on the back when she’s finished.

 

“Good job, Shaw.”

_Only then does she understand what he did._

* * *

 

After that, Peter and Sebastian tease her endlessly about how _food,_ is the way back to her real self.

 

She’s not _Shaw_ enough, yet, to react.

 

* * *

 

 

 _But,_ you see the problem is, that almost a year ago, they captured a _Shaw,_ they killed her slowly so that she’s less of a dangerous chemical, and _now_ they want _another_ Shaw.

 

She has to be _Shaw,_ because _Shaw_ is what they bargained for.

 

(No matter what the cost.)

 

* * *

 

 

The cost is a very subtle, very low question, tricky around the edges, but lava down to the core, that they know she will hear it even though that steak they brought her to the warehouse already has her undevided attention.

 

“Why did _she_ get to call you Sameen?”

 

Sebastian asks the question that _no one_ has ever asked her in her entire time in captivity, and he asks with an untoward tone.

 

He asks and she tenses like a board where she’s seated on the bench in front of the large space which she’s made her personal gym. He has a sumptuous grin on his face that burns its way to her mind and in her permanent memories.

 

She doesn’t reply. She just stares at the knife in her hand and watches her reflection simmer under the white light coming through the windows high across the room.

 

“I asked you a question.” He approaches and Shaw comprehends this posture, crossed arms, stable feet, and coarse eyes. It’s the kind of stance that one has when they seek for a fight.

 

A fight that Shaw’s not sure, ( _definitely not),_ she has the mental _or_ thephysical power required to give.

 

So she sticks to the sidelines, to the safe space, and gives a neutral answer. “I am not Sameen.”

 

Sebastian laughs maliciously. “You sure you wanna play like that?”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“ _Root.”_ The reply hits her abruptly and unexpetedly, a tidal wave crushing over her and taking her whole being with it. Her eyes snap up to his, and her jaw clenches out of its own accord, trying – and _failing,_ to stop the images from flashing in front of her eyes.

 

“Sebastian.” Peter’s voice, scolding and harsh, is barely audible over the furious thumping of her heart, desperately attempting to escape its confines and gradually succeeding.

 

“What?” Apparently the blond – haired man facing her has chosen to ignore him as well, taking more of an interest in the way Shaw’s gripping the blade. “That struck a nerve?”

 

Shaw won’t, _can’t_ take this man. He’s obviously in form and ready for any compromise, but she hasn’t had a go at an attack ever since 6 months ago. But she’s taken aback by her own _anger,_ this _emotion_ to her that’s so familiar but at the same time so foreign to her now. There’s something boiling in her, and it feels like she may explode if it doesn’t come out. But why now? Why so suddenly? Why is he so eager to back her to a corner when she’s already pressed to a wall?

 

“Why _her_ Shaw?”

 

“Sebastian.”

 

“I mean, Root’s probably already dead by now. What with all the suicide attempts – “

 

“Sebastian!” Peter has closed in on them in record time, cutting Sebastian off before he finishes, but Shaw hears, she _listens._ She listens to all the unspoken words, she listens to the way Sebastian intones _her_ name, degrading and demoralizing at best.

 

The challenge is distinct and cleverly put.

 

“She’ll die for a Shawthat doesn’t even exist!”

 

The air stills, and with muscles coiling and tightening, she lashes out on him with a knife aimed at the heart. Peter moves to interfere, but the blond man in front of her has already grabbed her hand and broken her wrist like it’s nothing.

 

“ _I think we’re finally making progress.”_

* * *

 

In the night, whilst it’s dark and she doesn’t have to mask her face from the pain and exhaustion that’s overcome her, when she’s certain that he can’t _see,_ she finds the courage to shift on the couch.

 

“ _Sameen.”_ She states.

 

“What?” Peter asks, abandoning his drink in favor of turning towards her.

 

Shaw looks down at her hands, one bandaged professionally, and the other weak and thin, and swallows. “Not _Shaw.”_

Peter furrows his brows confused.

 

Shaw clenches her fists, even though it sends excruciating pain rippling through her right arm. “She’ll die for a _Sameen,_ that doesn’t even exist.” She mumbles.

 

 “I don’t know her…” Peter starts, then bites his tongue like he had something to say, but changed his mind.

 

He stares at her firmly anyway.

 

“ _But I think she’d die for any of them.”_

* * *

 

She remembers the basics of holding a gun, a month later, after her wrist has healed, and they attempt a repeat performance of last time’s, _real training._ She doesn’t vomit, and she manages to keep her aim straight for more than half an hour, even though said aim is far off from the actual dummy they’ve placed in front of her.

 

She _smiles._

* * *

 

It turns out Sebastian _can_ be a _not_ ass, if he wants to. Even though he hasn’t apologized for that little rile – up he did a month ago, he sometimes brings her food during range shooting, or offers her a cup of warm coffee straight to her hands when he tags along with Peter to pick her up from the apartment.

 

He’s also the one to suggest allowing her to walk down the stairs to the entrance of the building on her own instead of being walked down like a _well – treated prisoner._ Which, _is,_ certainly a plus.

 

“You two combined remind me of someone.” She almost mocks one afternoon, when she’s in a relatively _normal_ mood, and they have graciously offered her a meal to a nearby store after a complete session of re – learning how to hold a machine gun efficiently, and professionally.

 

Peter’s head snaps up immediately.

 

“I thought _I,_ reminded you, of a _dead_ person.” He points out with a note of complaint in his voice, and Sebastian outright laughs at that.

 

“ _Deadzoned_.”

 

Seeing as though the two men across the table have started arguing over this rediculous matter, she’s content to just sit there and watch, all the while her head is swarmed by memories of icy blue eyes and smug smirks, a low voice and amusing countenance.

 

_After all, how could she ever forget her mayhem twin?_

* * *

 

Most of the time, they make sure to keep conversations light and easy.

 

From time to time, Sebastian pushes, pulls threads and puts pressure on the seams of _Shaw_ , where he knows she’ll bleed and stutter. It’s a strategy, to try and force her into fury and violence, because they need _Shaw_ back in shape soon. But those moments are rare, passing by like ships in the night that only sting for a little and then are to lie forgotten.

 

Peter, who she, _quite frankly_ , likes more, doesn’t ever do anything of that kind, rather than just ask and mostly not expect an answer.

 

_Still, they both know what not to question._

* * *

 

 

Eventually, they let her walk outside, within a distance of two blocks. She puts on a long – sleeved blouse, thin so as not to sweat, and opts for a pair of black jeans. People outside are wearing t – shirts and shorts because it’s summer, begginnings of June, now, but her body is peppered with kisses from knives and lighters, and there’s nothing about her body manageable by the wandering eyes of pedestrians.

 

Peter tells her that by block two, she will have found the deli he visits so often, and amongst all the chaos of New York and the sun hitting her skin, she finds that even though the crowd makes her feel queasy and spent, the thought of food chosen by herself is very tempting.

 

Who knows?

 

_Maybe food is the way to her old self after all._

* * *

 

She starts _actually_ using machine guns for the first time in July.

The M1919 is her first and only, after a lengthy quarrel between Sebastia and Peter about whether or not it’s suitable for her first attempts. She manages fine.

 

When it’s done they clap her on the back, and they all call her Shaw.

 

_It feels strange but good._

* * *

 

She notices it one day, standing on a table by the shooting booth, proud and glimmering under the white lights of the studio.

 

She doesn’t flinch, ( _she’ll come to think of this moment later as Shaw’s first  breath ever),_ instead approaches it and stares to make sure it won’t go away as another filthy figment of her cruel imagination.

 

_She drops the 5.75 bullet in her pocket and shuts the lights off on her way out._

* * *

 

A month later, middle of August, she has earned a reputation at the range, is able to walk eight blocks away from her apartment, can eat more than three steaks during lunch, and has begun lessons of hand – to – hand combat.

 

_She wakes up everyday feeling a bit stronger, with a bullet on her nightstand keeping her anchored to earth._

 

* * *

 

  _But it’s never that simple is it?_

 

* * *

 

 

Sebastian is rough, not only around the edges but beneath his skin as well, pitiless when he has to be, and kind far less. He kicks and punches and _attacks,_ as Shaw misses her breath and flails and _loses._

Peter’s always there, condescending, telling him to take it easy, _she’s not ready yet._

But she wants to be.

 

_So she throws one good punch in while Sebastian is distracted, and then recieves a hundred of its kind until she’s lying motionless on the floor with nothing but shame coating her senses._

* * *

 

_“You_ are not the one who has to debrief Greer, Peter.”

 

“Beating her senseless isn’t gonna help.”

 

“Trying to be her friend won’t either.”

 

“She wants someone, Sebastian, she wants someone who reminds her of – “

 

“Of who? John Reese? Harold Finch?”

 

_“Peter, you and I both know no one can remind her of who she really wants to be reminded of.”_

_Shaw closes the door without a sound and drowns out the voices, falling asleep with the bullet clutched tight in her fist._

* * *

 

Sebastian, of course I the one to first notice her little tether to the object. Flummoxed and  dazed, confused and sleepy, Shaw can’t even find the will power necessary to stop him from barging in, and throwing it out the window.

 

( _She stumbles down later, stares at the sidewalk like it might crumble beneath her feet any moment, and seeks it out until dawn. Eradicated from within her, only anger surfaces above. She does not find it.)_

* * *

 

 

The first time she beats Sebastian, it’s almost ends of September, and she doesn’t stick around for compliments. She convinces Peter that a trip to a tattoo parlor is what she _needs,_ and slams down a piece of paper with a thorough bullet sketch on it on the employee’s desk as soon as she’s in.

 

“ _I’m Shaw, and I want this tattooed on my back.”_

* * *

 

Sebastian’s face when he sees it, and what’s written on it, is the only thing that’s made her feel _smug_ in ages.

 

_She feels like Shaw might have finally arrived._

* * *

 

After she’s completed most of her training, (October now), they proceed to let her tag along to stakeouts. She’s not allowed to shoot anyone, or interfere in any way, but the nausea turning her insides out wouldn’t allow her to anyway.

 

It’s different out there, in the real world, after all this time, even though all she does is sit in a car and listen to crappy country music 24/7. She remembers the andrenalie, the pleasure she used to get from being part of the mission, from kneecapping and punching, but now all she feels is anxious and itchy.

 

_“It’ll take some time, but it’ll come, don’t worry.”_

 

_Peter is always there._

* * *

 

“Coffee?”

 

Peter makes her flinch, but if he notices, he doesn’t comment on it.

 

“I thought I was supposed to go on these little walks on my own?”

 

Peter shrugs like he has nothing better to do, and sits on the bench near her, his boots digging the snow underneath them. He’s wearing a warm, fur coat, and a beanie that’s too small, and almost makes him look like an elf.

 

He suddenly smirks. “You sure pulled a stunt with that tattoo.”

 

Shaw shakes her head and looks away. Down to the path she trekked to come here, and the way snowflakes landed softly on the ground.

 

“It’s okay.” He says much later, coffees cold and ancient history, with hands shivering through gloves due to the relentless cold. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

 

She couldn’t even if she wanted to.

 

* * *

 

 

_Until he isn’t._

 

Until the calendar shows 30TH of October, and Peter doesn’t come by the apartment during the night with bags full of food occupying his hands and an awfully annoying cheerfulness. Instead, there’s a key scratching her lock and she almost jumps out of fear at the noise.

 

She tries to remember the fighting lessons, fumbling around the room for _something,_ to defend herself with, but only a second passes before the front door is open, and familiar blonde, sandy hair shake violently as Sebastian approaches her with a somewhat urgent look in his eyes.

 

“Come on, move.” He states and grabs her by the arm, but she shakes him off, ( _finally Shaw),_ frowns deeply because she’s struggling to understand what’s going on.

 

“Is this a drill?”

 

Sebastian laughs a humorless laugh before he grabs at her bicep again, with more force and pulls her out. “If only.”

 

They’re half – jogging, half – walking, to the stairs that lead to the exit, with Sebastian breathing heavy and ragged.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

He ignores her and keeps going, but then like a snake recoils back with a finger on his ear, before he curses and turns them around. They start running. “Go!”

 

She doesn’t register why until there are gunshots deep echoing off the walls from deep further in the building, and shouts, resonant throughout the entire space. Her heart picks up its pace, the beats racing away from her, and her legs start off as in auto – pilot, matching the tempo of her short swallow breaths, and Sebastian’s urging hands. They run back where they came from,  while the sounds become all the more loud, and when they reach her door and she falters, he shakes his head no and shouts at her to keep going. Stair after stair, two at a time, Sebastian hisses and curses after listening to what Shaw can only assume is an earpiece.

 

They’ve reached the second floor when there’s a sudden bang. The air stills, and time stops, blood pumping underneath her skin like there’s no tomorrow.

 

“Run!”

 

She’s never reacted so fast in her life. There are bullets wheezing past them as they sprint to the end of the hallway, where the other flight of stairs is. Her eyes struggle to focus on that exact spot, as if no laps in the world would ever be enough for her to learn how to hold onto her stamina. Sebastian shoots behind them and only manages to to take out two of the men closing in, before he gives up trying to multitask and proceeds to jump up the stairs. For all the training in her life, _the new one,_ she could have never been prepared for this. And judging by the way Sebastian looks, she has every right not to be.

 

But the gunshots won’t stop, and Shaw doesn’t grasp why they’re going _up,_ it seems futile in her opinion, but then again, no one asked her.

 

“We’ve been compromised,” Sebastian shouts persumably to the person on the other side of the comm – link. “I repeat, we’ve be – ”

 

White cuts through her senses, a deafening _bang,_ so close that she falls to her knees and holds her palms to her ears, trying to stop the seemingly endless shaking around of her brain, with bile threatening to come up and her eyes burning through nothingness. Her breathing becomes ragged very quickly, and she fights to focus on anything for more than a second. She tries futilely to call Sebastian’s name, then Peter’s but nothing comes out. Instead, she thinks she distinguishes an outline of a shape further away, and she tenses, coming up with nothing but thin air to defend herself.

 

But then she sees familiar eyes looking straight at her and next thing she knows, Sebastian is picking her up, shaking her from her shoulders and she _knows_ he’s talking to her, but she can only see his lips opening and closing through it all.

 

“GO!” He’s shouting in her ear the next moment, shoves a gun in her hand and when she asks for Peter he only keeps pushing her towards a door to the right. Her ears start functioning properly, and everything that was dull before is suddenly a cacophony that makes her want to fold in on herself and sleep forever.

 

In a flash of a moment, he’s telling that Peter’s _gone, you have to get out on your own now, take the fire escape, there’s a bomb, just run, don’t look back._

She doesn’t get the chance to process all of the information before he throws her out the window, glasses penetrating her everywhere and she lands on a stairwell, the fire escape. She panics slightly but then runs like hell when she sees a man approaching her from the window, and she thinks she catches a glimpse of a gun placed on Sebastian’s head before she rallies down. Everything hurts and nothing makes sense.

 

She makes it to the ground before there’s someone barelling right into her from behind, pinning her to the ground and trying to shoot, but her index finger pulls the trigger of her own gun and before she knows it, she has blood on her that she doesn’t own and a dead body.

 

She gets up and _runs._

* * *

 

But she doesn’t know where to go, so she sticks close, and at the sewers and when she hears a larg _boom,_ she resurfaces hesitantly to watch her whole buiding fall apart.

 

She knows it’s stupid, and irrational, but _she goes back._

* * *

 

To find only stones and bricks and people surrounding the offending area with open mouths and loud gasps. She goes around the back and enters, the gun in her hand shaking from her effort to _stay steady._

But it’s pointless, she knows, no one could have survived something like _this._ What’s remained of the building are the tiles that were already on the ground, and she sees bloodspray even grom down here – needless to say there’ll be much more up there.

 

She realizes Sebastian is most probably dead.

 

_It makes her hot with rage, and she feels so much like Shaw, now, that when she sees a body writhing underneath a boulder, she shoots him twice and never once flinches._

* * *

 

_Shaw,_ _is reborn, rised from the debris of a fallen, seven – stories high buiding, like a phoenix breathing through its ashes, ready to live again. With shadows spreading behind her like serpents curl up the trees, with _blood_ , rippling under her boots and running down the floors, through the cracks and the recesses of white, glittering tiles, with every step she takes._

 

* * *

 

“Shaw,” she cringes and instantly turns her eyes to the source of the memorable voice.

 

“Sebastian?”

 

Sebastian’s there and alive and he smiles when he sees her, sadly but urgently.

 

“You’re not safe here.”

 

“Peter…” She stops because Sebastian closes his eyes when she speaks his name, looking pained. “What are you going to do?” She asks instead.

 

There's a long, undue silence, before he takes a seat next to her, on the very same bench she'd been sitting next to Peter a while ago.

 

“ _I’m going to have a chat with one of your old friends.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to those who leave kudos, read and comment.  
> It's what keeps me going.


	4. sucker love is known to swing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Root stops laughing altogether and when she turns to Shaw her eyes are glistening and blurry. The lights of the television play on her features like a projection machine, white, black, red, blue ;_
> 
> _Fleeting over her nose and her lips and these eyes, that Shaw could never possibly escape._
> 
> _How had she ever thought she could?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, this chapter grew legs and ran away, so I had to break it down to two, but here's the good news, it's already written so no long wait this time.

It’s December.

 

New York is filled with lanterns and Christmas lights, snow falling everywhere, covering parks and buildings in thin sheets of white, glittering and cold. Children are happy, running around, people rush to their works and go back in the night to count the days until holidays. The atmosphere is festive and exuberant, brimming with pleasant activities and family nights.

 

In the Big Apple, it’s Thursday, and the lights never go out.

 

But she wouldn’t know, would she?

 

Because she’s not in the Big Apple. It’s Thursday but she’s nowhere near her apartment and the only light that won’t go out _here,_ is the tall lamppost next to her that sticks out the snow like a black, charred bone. The glass around the lamp has been broken and cracked in most places, broken shards littered around her feet.

 

No she’s not in New York. She’s not in the U.S, and she’s not in the _continent._

_Sebastian_ , ignoring all her objections, has arranged a meeting _here,_ in the cold dark nights of Scarborough, North Yorkshire ; England.

 

Houses around were very few if not absent, blankets of snow all around them.

 

The wind is howling, making itself known, moving her thick, black coat along with it. She feels cold and tired, standing here for over an hour now. Shaw struggles to see in front of her – night blinded with dust and newspapers moving around pointlessly.

 

It looks like Chernobyl, a deserted and neglected part of town.

 

She understands the reasons behind this location, she _gets it._

In a span of one month, she’s become the most Shaw she ever could be.

 

* * *

 

 

 She doesn’t stop to dwell.

 

She remains in position, as Sebastian ordered, gripping a trustworthy USP in her hand firmly. Her eyes travel around quickly, precisely taking in the enviroment, and periodically glancing towards where she knows he is situated at.

 

She doesn’t stop to dwell, but her brain short – circuits as her mind considers all the possibilities. _Who would it be?_

 

The man in the glasses? The man in the suit? The detective?

 

_Her?_

There’s a tightening in her chest whenever she chances a thought towards that direction, a tightening she’s come to recognize as a natural reaction that her body has owned, Shaw or not. She purses her lips and tries to cast everything away. She knows what Sebastian’s plan is. If everything goes smoothly, she’ll have plenty of time to think about that later.

 

Leaf litter and stones crunch under her boots as she sits down on a bench nearby, staring down at her hands as they shiver and freeze. Shaw silently placates herself, but the stream of endless _feelings_ won’t go away. Earning back herself, it appears, came with the whole package, memories more vivid, beliefs and experiences smacking her in the face with unfathomable force.

 

 _Root,_ lingers in the back of her mind like a shadow that even when placed under intense sunlight, won’t go away.

 

Knocking down her walls and the fortress that is her self – control, she can’t help but wonder what has happened, how the team has managed without her.

 

A selfish, _wanting,_ part of her almost wishes it’ll be _her,_ just to see her face and the way it’ll contort and _change,_ as she’ll look at what’s left alive, at who is this new but somehow _same_ Shaw. How she’ll react when she realizes that _Sameen,_ fell through the cracks in between _._

Stumbling and fidgeting, Shaw _wonders,_ wonders if Root would mind that she did.

 

* * *

 

 

That’s how she can explain a little of pang _something_ when she sees _him._

She can tell, even from so many feet away. No long hair, no lean physique or sassy walk.

 

It’s John. Her heart clenches in a way she’ll never admit – _nostalgia._

_(_ The egotistic part of her, breathing through fractures of who she presents herself as, weaves and tenses and _aches.)_

She can see the gun clutched tightly in his right hand, can distinguish the way it’s lowered when Sebastian raises his hands as if in surrender, gesturing with his head over his shoulder. She can make out the way John freezes, loses his façade even though she can’t see his face.

 

(Shaw can feel the way her hands are getting sweaty against the cold, her palms no longer efficient enough to hold the firearm close.)

 

Minutes pass like seconds, and Shaw _senses_ so much it hurts. It’s as if everything is heightened, as if she stands she might fall down, and not because she’s _weak,_ but because she’s Shaw, and Shaw _knew_ this man. Perhaps better than anyone else, better than anyone she’s ever known. Went through hell and back with him, died for him as well.

 

Her eyes turn to their direction, and when she sees them walking towards her in quick, but cautious steps, she rolls her eyes, and gets up, and she thinks she sees John _smile._

* * *

 

Sebastian doesn’t say goodbye or hug her, or touch her, because he discerns she’s uncomfotable. Shaw doesn’t do hugs.

 

So he gathers up close, extends his arm and drops something in her pocket, before leaning away.

 

“He found it for you.” He whispers, and from the waver in his voice, she recognizes who he’s referring to.

 

He brushes past and she doesn’t look back.

 

* * *

 

 

“Shaw,” John starts a sentence to fill the silence in the car, but from the way his eyebrows furrow slightly, and his mouth opens and closes repeatedly, he looks like he regrets trying in the first place.

 

He shakes his head, and turns to look at her with stern blue eyes and a matching face.

 

Shaw, itching to make the look go away, but at the same time relieved, says nothing – because there’s nothing to say.

 

She stares back, lets a rare smile graze her lips, untl he nods, and continues driving. Shaw clutches at the bullet in her pocket and contemplates what will come up ahead.

 

* * *

 

 

 _What comes up ahead_ , is a safehouse she assumes they took property of while she was away.

 

(So many ways to describe that period, but she’d rather use the least painful one.)

 

It’s on the ouskirts of Scarborough, with a balcony that overlooks the sea, miles away. John patiently lets her check the whole place, which could be accurately described as a villa. She turns in and out of corridors, marvels innerly at the kitchen and heads upstairs. Her bedroom is large and luxurious – _nothing_ like her.

 

_She sighs._

* * *

 

John is discreet, she’ll give him that. He eyes her up and down every time Shaw’s eyes stray sideways, derailing from their original path to gaze at the view. He lurks behind her like an alley cat ready to jump any moment, and even though it annoys her to no end, she _understands_ the need.

 

They don’t talk. She just ventures around on the large balcony which is surprisingly not drowned in snow, although it’s wet.

“We cleaned it up.” John’s voice is warm and gravelly as he startles away the silence, but it’s nothing different from what she has always known.

 

Shaw turns around to face him with an amiable scoff. “Plan to keep me here long?” She asks even while she’s aware of the answer. She gets the plan. Samaritan gave her away because something important happened a month ago, something that means Samaritan has bigger problems to deal with than her.

 

John is wary as he holds her gaze, saying a million things whilst speaking nothing.

 

“That depends on you.”

 

_She’s not sure how to feel about that statement._

 

* * *

 

 

She spends the night alone, in her room, staring at the ceiling and wishing it dripped down to nothingness. Her thoughts are suffocating, robbing her of oxygen and taking away her right to _sleep._ She looks to the left, on a mahogany nightstand but doesn’t see what is usually there.

 

The bullet is probably somewhere along the area of the kitchen, where she made a sandwich as a lame excuse of food. She’s not hungry.

 

Tempted way too far to go fetch the object, (she’d like not to consider why), she moves her bare feet to touch the cold tiled floor, and ignores the sheet that falls behind her like a white feather.

 

It’s stark black out, night sky filled with stars partly obstructed by the winter fog. She treads carefully, (ever so cautious), chills running up her arms and goosebumps on her neck. The kitchen is downstairs, straight down the hallway. She moves deliberately but not at all relaxed, so used to being ready for action that she can’t undo it now even if she wanted to.

 

The whole loft is dark, Shaw not bothering to leave the light on when she headed upstairs, but she can hear voices in the background, resonant even. She intends to ignore them until John’s voice, loud and clear, echoes from further inside. “ _Root.”_

Shaw stops breathing all at once, her legs all of a sudden unsteady on the ground, and chest heaving without air supply.

 

“ _Give her time.”_

Shaw goes back up without so much as a peep, only coherent thought in her mind _– she doesn’t want any time._

* * *

 

John leaves.

 

John leaves and she has a whole house to herself but she did not wish for it. She only wants to be herself. She wants John not to look at her warily, like she might disappear any moment or even worse – _lash out._

She wants all that. A lonely safehouse in England means nothing to her.

 

* * *

 

 

However, having no choice, (she recognizes this as a test, accepts it and adjusts accordingly), spends _week after week after week_ , jogging around the house, answering phone calls from both Harold and John, cleaning the only gun she has in her possession.

 

Eating and cleaning, taking _long_ , dragged out baths, and solving some crosswords she found in a shelf around the living room.

 

( _It’s hard sometimes, knowing nothing about the man who practically saved her.)_

There’s an easel next to the floor – length windows, and the more she looks at it, the more itchy her fingers become. She carries a table to the center of the large balcony upstairs, and a wooden dining chair, lowers the balcony tent and watches snowflakes fall down to the trees.

 

She _does not_ glance at the calendar.

 

(She can tell by the icreasing number of lights and sounds on the horizon that it’s close nonetheless.)

 

Shouts and grumbles and throws the phone in the sink when Harold refuses to let her return to New York. Shaw spends her days staring at the sky and walking to town. Her noons are filled with shopping bags, and her evenings filtered with empty beer bottles. In the mornings she goes for a run, thinks that she can get used to her old routines if she stays long enough – even though she doesn’t want to.

 

Taking risks is who she always has been, and she dares herself to go out and eat dinner on a closed off restaurant at the edge of town.She walks the thirty – minute distance and ignores the ache in her feet, ignores the inquiring and penetrating gazes of the owners, ( _she hasn’t been an active member of society in what seems to be forever_ ), instead ordering the usual expensive steak. She’s charging Harold’s check book, but Shaw thinks it’s only fair.

 

She does this week after week after week.

 

Shaw lathers, rinses, repeats, until Christmas Carols and bells ringing sound an early morning and Shaw wakes up to a message by John read through bleary and tired eyes.

 

_Root’s train arrives at 10:15 a.m._

* * *

 

In her mind, she retracts all the things she’s ever said, rearranges them so that the words form coherent thoughts which lead to different sentences. In her mind, a train will arrive, and a woman will step out ;

 

(Radiant and smiling, Root would be the death of her.)

 

In her mind ; she _hopes_ this.

 

* * *

 

 

Shaw reaches the train station at exactly _10:13 a.m_. Drenched and fatigued.

 

It’s deserted, but rain hits the pavement like the hammer a wall, and although it’s harsh, wind picking up her peacoat on its way, it also feels liberating in some way. There’s no bench to sit at, or shed to protect her.

 

She waits patiently, staring at the swaying trees ahead and the black, bold tracks underneath her.

She owns no watch, doesn’t have the means to check the time, besides the clock hanging from a warning sign an few feet away. Shaw doesn’t look at it, because she knows what _sick_ games time can play on her. Knowing would only make her more anxious, her stomach a tight knot too big to get rid of already.

Shaw, _waits,_ and realizes for the first time ever in both her lives, that she has always been doing just that.

* * *

 

She stops, at first.

 

It’s hard to explain what, exactly, but she thinks she might have stopped _being_ altogether. There are 50 tiles in between them, a clock hanging by and a door that opens as slow as an eternity, but soft brown curls ballet with the wind, and pale skin glitters under the rain’s administrations.

 

 _There’s a good 50 – tile distance between them_ , yet Shaw halts breathing all the same.

 

Root looks up as she stares ahead, and even in the scorching depths of Shaw, _Sameen_ screams and flails. The woman she’s dreamt of, the woman she’s died for countless of times in the hands of Martine, stands just 10 feet away, eyes wide open and palms curling like ivy around an oridinary umbrella’s handle.

 

 _Root,_ with a quivering lower lip and water drops flowing down her nose like small, delicate, waterfalls, is the closest thing to _home_ , Shaw’s felt in the last year of her life.

 

Shaw walks first.

 

* * *

 

 

“ _Hi_ ,” she breathes out more than says, to Shaw’s ears, lips twisting upwards at the corner while white teeth gleam even in the cloudy darkness. She almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of it, of how Root is looking at her like they’re scool kids and acquintances.

 

(When in fact, they’re everything _but.)_

But she’s not ready for the emotion swirling in Root’s hazel eyes, thinks that she’s only had a year when a century could have never sufficed to face this woman. Shaw wills her feet to stay still, represses a new feeling in her gut when Root’s lips tremble and clenches her jaw through the ache in her chest.

 

(Root carries no baggage and she doesn’t know what to do with that.)

 

A moment.

 

_Shaw opens the umbrella for her._

 

* * *

 

 

The walk to the house is silent.

 

Shaw’s cursing any God known to man for not owning a car, whilst Root is holding the umbrella over her like a shield.

 

_Their arms brush ever so lightly, whenever Shaw steps a bit off track, but she’s too preoccupied with the fact that Root hasn’t spared her a glance to bask in the glory of it._

 

* * *

 

 

“Sameen.”

 

With her back to the door, Shaw freezes with a dish in her hand, soap running on her fingers and dripping down her black, plain blouse. She feels her muscles tense out of their own accord, and bites her gum til’ it reddens.

 

“ _I am not Sameen_.” But it comes out more like a mantra rather than her own purposeful words.

 

A door closes akin to a sonic boom in the silence after, and then there’s nothing.

 

_She struggles not to open it again._

* * *

 

Shaw passes by her door around midnight, second to the left of the hallway upstairs, with a stream of a yellow faint glow escaping through the underside of the wooden barrier. She stops, stands there for a while with a palm resting against the hard surface. She stands there for so long that her hand returns to her with a splinter digging deep inside, and her knees feel like buckling under the weight of her thoughts.

 

She walks away.

 

(Three doors and nothing more in the middle, Shaw fleetingly wonders if Root isn’t _Root,_ anymore, either.)

 

* * *

 

 

Mornings are colder, mornings are more cruel.

 

Mornings are not warm, here in England, and mornings are not warm inside a house located at a random forest close to a small town called Scarborough.

 

Mornings sing to the forgotten, and Shaw’s got twenty on herself that the temperature will fall even lower. Begrudgingly, she’s checked the calendar, recognized the day, and decided that today is not a good day.

 

Tomorrow will be even worse.

 

(Mornings are cold, but _Root_ is colder, bathed in dawn’s light with her figure clad only in a sweater too big to be hers. Root is colder, as she takes the steps down the stairs with no sounds in her mouth, and Root is colder as she raises her eyes to meet Shaw’s in favor of staring down at the coffee surely to be swirling in her cup.)

 

* * *

 

 

“Why are you here?”

 

Shaw yields first. It’s a testament by itself that she’s _weaker,_ her tough façade chipping off and falling down to the ground for Root to step on.

 

The taller woman pauses at her inquiry, fingernails halting their relentless tapping on paper ;

 

Root is reading a book that Shaw bought the first day she went out, and the notion is heavy where it tucks away in her mind.

 

Rain is trickling down the windows in front of her and Shaw wonders if she’s dreaming, maybe. But Root’s head turns slightly, eyes flicking to her over her lean shoulder, and Shaw thinks she wouldn’t mind sleeping a bit more.

 

 _“_ It’s cold in New York.”

* * *

 

Root takes up no space, she finds out, when it’s noon and Root has gone downtown. Shaw walks the distance to the guest room and notices it’s mostly gone unused, other than the crumpled sheets at the edge of the bed.

 

She has the sudden urge to snoop, go inside and scour the room for anything that might be _hers_ and not this person’s that sits on the couch and gazes intently out the window like she suffers from dementia.

 

She doesn’t ask Root where she leaves off to, just nods and watches her go.

 

_(Calculates this is the hundredth time she’s watched her do the exact same thing.)_

 

* * *

 

It’s sometime later that Root returns, hair sticking to her forehead and trembling hands that protrude from the sleeves of some new fancy coat that Shaw wasn’t around to see her buy.

 

She bites her lip. Stands in the doorway and scans Shaw’s face for what feels like years. It takes Shaw by surprise and she scowls, the reaction almost natural even when her head screams that she likes the attention.

 

Root smiles for the first time in so much time in front of her eyes and Shaw falls, deep deep _deep,_ just as deep as she once threw _Sameen_.

 

 _“_ Go out with me?”

 

(Shaw falls even deeper if possible.)

 

* * *

 

 

Christmas Eve feels like an epidemy spreading on humans ;

 

Candles, shining lights and carols even in the smallest of towns.

 

Root’s warm as she’s walking next to her, and Shaw allows the occasional touches caused by their proximity. They stroll along the coast without so much as a sound, Shaw staring straight ahead even though she’d very much more rather look at _her._

This is not the Root she expected. But she’ll take her any way, although this particular conclusion unnerves her.

 

( _She is not Sameen.)_

A couple of kids run by towards a shop they just passed, wearing Santa beanies and squealing like it’s the happiest day of their lives. Shaw rolls her eyes. She’s never been a fan of Christmas, but then again, she’s never been a fan of anything.

 

She remembers absently, her dad decorating the tree at the corner of the living room, always hitching her up on his shoulders so that she can place the star on top. Never once had they broken their tradition.

 

(Once, with the lights disconnected and the star lying over and done on a wooden table near her bed.)

 

Shaw turns.

 

“You’re awfully quiet.”

 

She can hear Root’s sharp inhale, obviously surprised from the (admittedly poor) attempt at starting a conversation. Her eyes click sideways before they’re back on the horizon and then she shrugs.

 

“Silence isn’t that bad.” She turns her head away at this, finishing the sentence without staring at anything at all.

 

Shaw scoffs, “you hated the silence.”

 

They walk a bit more before Shaw catches Root looking at her with a faint, almost nonexistent smile grazing her pale, cold lips. She’d usually groan at the affection but it hits her like a ton of bricks ;

 

She hasn’t stared back at this face in a year, hasn’t seen the sparkling hazel eyes or witnessed the amazing phenomenon that is Root smiling, rosy, heart – shaped lips catching on pearly white teeth, and eyes crinkling along in coordination.

 

It’s been too long.

 

So she gulps and keeps the locked gaze about a second more, before she feels _Sameen_ threaten to resurface in a heap of broken foundation and a ruined _Shaw._

 

* * *

 

 

A tall, slim woman reaches dangerous territory when she’s onto the beginning of a sentence that starts with _Samaritan._

 

They’re eating at the diner Shaw discovered early on throughout her stay, and the steak is juicy and pleasant where it melts under Shaw’s tongue and teeth. She’s half supposing Root will shift her eyes towards her any moment now, pushing Shaw to the end of her patience as she usually did.

 

But Root sits, fingers toying with her utensils and plate unstained.

Just when she’s about to wrap up and leave, Root speaks.

 

“Samaritan wants you here.” It’s calculated, hesitant even. Root’s words tremble around the edges, vowels slipping slightly and it makes Shaw raise her eyes to meet the other woman’s seriously. There’s more, she knows. She’s not sure if she wants to hear it but at the end of the day it’s better than knowing nothing.

 

“And?” Shaw prompts, and Root bites her lip as she looks down at her still full plate.

 

“I thought…” She stops. Stares up at Shaw, trying to gain more confidence. “I thought you’d ask why.”

 

She shrugs noncommittally. “They have their reasons. At first I figured Harold was the reason behind all…” she does a vague gesture with her hands, “… _this._ But I guess I was wrong.”

 

After her words, Root frowns like she’s trying to figure something or rather _Shaw_ out. Maybe she’s confused as to why Shaw isn’t bothered by the thought of Samaritan having a say in her life. It’s because Samaritan has had a say in her life for a long, long time now ;

 

She’s gotten used to it.

 

Shaw stares back impassively, waiting. Root has that glint in her eye, a tentative reflection that means something is stuck between her tongue and teeth and might never come out if not handled properly.

 

Finally, she sighs. “I… I’d appreciate it if you stayed here as well.”

 

_(This she didn’t expect ;_

_Root should have reached out with arms made of iron, vice grip tightening around Shaw and chucking her away back home. Shaw would half – heartedly shake her off and pretend she hadn’t missed it.)_

Shaw does not speak, although Root looks as if she’d prefer that she did.

 

“Why?” She asks at last.

 

The brunette clenches her jaw, tenses up and states :

 

“You’re safe here.”

_(She’d like to inform her that she’s not safe anywhere, not anymore. Samaritan got under her skin and is never coming out, ever again.)_

* * *

 

 

Shaw off – handedly suggests that they watch a movie when they return. It’s already 10:00 p.m and she’s walked way past the limits of her abilities,  snow slowly inching through her soles, and water dripping down her face like tears in the form of rain.

 

Root, apparently slightly taken aback, turns to her with eyebrows shooting up to her hairline, and the scowl Shaw delivers is almost natural reflex by now.

 

_(She wonders if she would’ve done the same had she been the trash Martine had left her be.)_

 

Root smiles despite the negativity, and Shaw’s heart does a funny flip.

 

“Okay then.” She says unable to hide the glee from her tone, and Shaw stares resolutely ahead. “Should we rent one?”

 

Well she hasn’t thought that far ahead. But she doubts Finch would have either ;

 

No way in hell has he hidden any DVD case under her nose.

 

“I’m not sure there’s a DVD store anywhere around here.” Shaw states, because it’s true.

 

But there’s silence on the other woman’s end, and when she looks sideways to her, her suspicions are confirmed as Root subtly scratches at a spot behind her ear.

 

“Is it not talking to you?”

 

Root flinches distinctly even from a foot apart, and Shaw’s not sure whether it’s due to the fact that Shaw knows or the use of her pronoun.

 

Either way, she never gets an answer as Root mutters a “there”, and quickens her step towards a small shop at the end of the coast.

 

Shaw sighs.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s nothing short of ludicrous, really, the way Root is even attempting at hiding her giggles and gleaming eyes, considering Shaw is barely three breaths apart, and decidedly _not blind._

The couch is small but comfortable where they lounge, Shaw almost sinking back at the plush leather. The furniture is practically vibrating in tandem to Root’s muffled chuckles, as, on the TV screen, _Ebenezer Scrooge_ , a bitter and scrawny old man is cornered by the most ridiculous looking _ghost_ ever to have existed _in the history_ of ghosts.

 

If you ask Shaw, the greenish coloring of the character is a huge, fat flob. _Root_ , apparently, doesn’t seem to pay it any mind. Also, did she mention Root has a thing for running around half – naked?

 

How is Shaw even supposed to focus on the damn story if she has Madam _Only Legs_ doing nothing but swing those up and about while trying to keep her absurd noises in?

 

( _How is she supposed to focus when all she can think about is how once those exact legs were wrapped around her waist and a muted, breathless “Sameen” was whispered against her shoulder?)_

Her long oversized sweater’s sleeve has a wet patch in the shape of Root’s lips as the other woman rests it against her mouth, and Shaw swallows hard, thinks of all the times she’s dreamt of this and _more,_ thinks of how it makes her sick to realize that even a newer, better wall Shaw made of steel, can’t hold back the inexplicable force that is _Sameen._

 

Root stops laughing altogether and when she turns to Shaw her eyes are glistening and blurry. The lights of the television play on her features like a projection machine, white, black, red, blue ;

 

Fleeting over her nose and her lips and these _eyes,_ that Shaw could never possibly escape.

 

_How had she ever thought she could?_

Shaw swallows, once, twice, stares deep in the hazel, and holds her gaze steady, even though it aches, and burns where its processed in her brain.

 

_(Holds her gaze even as Root’s tears stain the beige leather couch, and even as Root’s eyelids flutter closed against the image of Scrooge extinguishing a spirit with the candle snuffer cap.)_


	5. every me and every you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _At the end of Christmas, Root leaves._
> 
>  
> 
> _Kisses Shaw before she gets on the train, whispers a broken goodbye and never looks back._
> 
>  
> 
> _At the end of Christmas Sameen Shaw falls, but thinks she’s never stood so high._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end.

Shaw sits, glass of scotch held tightly in her palm, misty breath spreading on the lid like spider webs when her lip touches the surface. Outside, the church bells are ringing louder than ever before, echoes resonant from the horizon.

 

Shaw sits, glass of scotch held tightly in her palm, and _stares_ as a strand of hair falls to the side of Root’s peaceful face, fights the urge to push it away. Root is folded in on herself, burrowed in her sweater, feet tucked underneath her. The world is moving on, celebrating but Shaw sits, still, downing the alcohol in slow measured sips.

 

Shaw sits, and the notion strikes her that she wouldn’t mind sitting here for a little while longer.

 

Root shivers slightly, goosebumps rising on the skin visible underneath her clothing, pale skin exposed to the cold temperatures  of the late night. But at 3 a.m, pleasantly buzzing and warm, Shaw feels nothing but numbness along her bare arms. The other woman shifts in her sleep, and Shaw tilts her head, once again drowning in the pit of her own thoughts.

 

Root is thinner, more fragile somehow. Her eyes are duller and there are black, faint brushes of paint underneath the eyelids. Sharp but small wrinkles frame her beautiful face – next to her mouth, at the end of her almond – shaped eyes ;

 

Tiny, elegant lines that take nothing away from the woman’s attractiveness.

 

Her chest rises and falls steadily, Shaw’s heartbeat matching her breaths because it’s been almost two years and she would have done anything to be able to sleep with the image of Root breathing, safe and sound a few feet away.

 

_(Shaw would have done anything for the image of Root at all, even though she would have never admitted it.)_

 

She drinks. Sparing a glance outside, snow has started falling, and the moon illuminates the room only slightly.

 

_Has the sky always been so black?_

 

She feels tired and empty, like she’s put all her strength and effort into something and there’s nothing left for her to give anymore. As if she was a Marine and everything had gone FUBAR, leaving her stranded on the desert with only one way out and that way was miles, endless miles long.

 

And isn’t that what existing now actually _is?_

Shaw’s died, been reborn and dragged through the pain, stranded on a desert with emotions for ground and memories for heat. Shaw’s died, brought back to life for a purpose that she can’t serve, and here she is, realizing that what she’s really left with is _Sameen,_ throbbing and twinging with pain.

 

She clenches her jaw and finishes her drink.

 

Shaw stands up.

 

Root stirs awake and she tries not to think about how fast the hacker reacted. She looks confused and sleepy – _on edge._

 

_She already knows Root will follow no mater what._

* * *

 

Deep within the woods and far away from the house, Root asks no questions and Shaw walks with the dumbfounding silence as she forever has.

 

The moon shines bright, but she’s lost track of time, in between crunching leaves and narrow paths. Finally, Root relents.

 

“Where are we going?”

 

The answer stands proud and wild as they reach a clearing, expanding on the ground, calm as ever, unpertubed.

 

The lake seems cold and shallow, and it’s just what Shaw needs.

 

She doesn’t wait for Root to catch up, doesn’t wanna wait anymore at all, doen’t wanna do anything but step into that lake, shivering, bottomless and freezing.

 

Striding forward, Shaw rids of her coat first, throwing it somewhere to the left. Her long hair curl at the bottom, and the end of her ponytail grazes against her back, against the rough fabric of the tank top. She chills to the bone and has to physically force herself to move forward.

 

“Shaw.” She hears behind her and now she knows Root’s right behind her.

 

But this is not Root, Shaw reminds herself. Root would have smirked, thrown an innuendo and talked. This is not Root, and she is not Shaw, not really, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to let herself be Sameen.

 

Why? So that she can _feel?_ She doesn’t _want_ to.

 

(She rips her top off and ignores the gasp behind her.)

 

She doesn’t _want_ to look at Root and have to think of all the times she’s wanted to speak, to say things that she _herself_ doesn’t know how to articulate. Because that’s who Sameen is. _Hers, forever and always._

She almost laughs absurdly as she kicks her pants off.

 

“Shaw…” Wavering and stumbling.

 

_(This is it. Shaw belongs to Martine and Sameen belongs to Root, and sometimes she thinks the latter might be more painful after all.)_

She’s _missed_ her. But Shaw doesn’t miss people. Shaw doesn’t care about people, not in the manner that translates to a weight so heavy on her chest that she thinks she might sink, sink to the bottom of an eternal sea that she has no knowledge of.

 

Maybe, she thinks, maybe sinking to the bottom of the lake that she at least found herself is better.

 

Naked and bruised, Shaw walks forward and relishes in the pain that shoots up her spine because she’s the cause of it. Not Martine, not a long lost image of a person that she might have _fallen_ for.

 

“Shaw stop!”

 

Useless, all of it. She grits her teeth and lets the icy water reach her waist, lets her back chill and her bones turn to ice.

 

_Christmas, how ironic._

She closes her eyes. The forest is eerily silent, as if it’s complying with her will.

 

How easy? To just close her eyes and dive, away from everything, everyone.

 

(Shaw would have never given up, but it turns out, she’s not _Shaw_ at all.)

 

She inhales. Feels the senses slowly drain from inside out and welcomes it, welcomes the cold and –

 

“Sameen,” Root’s voice, mellifluous and breaking at the corners sounds so close that Shaw flinches, opens her eyes and stills herself to nothingness.

 

Her reflection on the surface of the lake stares back at her and it’s been the first time in so long that she’s looked at it, that it makes her ill now, queasy and nauseous.

 

( _Repelling and ugly, her self looks back at her and she’s never loathed life more.)_

_“Sameen,”_ Root repeats, this time her voice holding no strength at all. Shaw hates it, hates all of it. Hates the way Root’s palm fits so perfectly in between her shoulder blades, cold and wet.

 

_Hates her._

Shaw turns around with what’s left of her power, and glares, glares deep in Root’s red, glassy eyes and wills her body to move, to let her grab Root and choke her, end her before _she_ ends Shaw.

 

Glares, with all the intensity than she can muster, _hates_ Root, because if she doesn’t the alternative will bring her to her knees.

 

(Anything and everything, Root would be the death of her.)

 

 _“I. Am not. Sameen.”_ She growls, feels her knees buckle under the cold temperature.

 

Root is naked, standing in front of her, specks of water painting her upper body as she stares back with raw emotion.

 

“You will always be Sameen to me.” She whispers. _Wrong, wrong, wrong._

 

(Anything and everything, Shaw _died_ in the hands of Martine, but with Root deep inside her head.)

 

A tear falls and with it falls Shaw’s wall, a dam breaking and _Sameen_ spilling out in the aftermath.

 

She should have known really.

 

The lake disappears underneath her when she kisses Root with force, pushing her back, _back, back,_ but this time following right away. She kisses Root for all the times she hasn’t, feels cold, slender hands come to rest on her cheeks and presses further, as salt lies on her tongue from Root’s tears falling free down her face.

 

Root whimpers and Sameen flails, loses her resolve and _feels,_ feels her own frown and a strange burning in her eyes she’s never experienced before. Her arms tighten around Root’s slim waist and bring her closer, closer until there’s no distance between them, to make up for all this time that they couldn’t.

 

It’s been so long, but Root still hangs onto her like Shaw’s the center of it all.

 

_(Anything and everything, Root kills her repeatedly and revives her each time.)_

* * *

 

The moment they’re in the house, she’s already grabbed Root from low down her body and feels the need to _be_ in Root claw desperately at every piece of her resolve. The cold doesn’t matter, nothing does but Root’s legs wrapped around her hips and her hands tangling in Sameen’s hair messily, whining and crying and _asking (_ silently taking).

 

She’d thought she’d be disgusted, images of Martine and her cunning hands flooding her mind but Root is _here,_ more intruding and overwhelming than anyone has ever been and Shaw’s body reacts by itself, no longer under her control.

 

She curves her edges against Root’s, coaxes her jaw open with her tongue to delve in the liquid warmth inside. Root moans and _God_ has she missed her, missed the way Root clicks against her like a puzzle piece.

 

It’s around dawn as Sameen walks further forward, and has no enough might to move any further.

 

She slams Root back on the large windows and Root hisses, breathes hotly in her mouth as Sameen removes the wet sweater of her body and dives in toward her neck, licking the vein pulsing life fervently. Root exhales shakily and digs her fingertips even deeper in Shaw’s tresses, untying her hair in the process. Her skin bruises easily, this Shaw knows, as she pulls the skin in her teeth and then lets go, watching the remainders of her mark fade away on Root’s shoulder.

 

“Sameen,” Root whispers again, voice lost amidst their intermingled, loud breaths.

 

Shaw swallows and kisses Root again, moving her lips with purpose. Out of all the times she has imagined this, none has ever been quite like this.

 

Soon enough they’re both bare again, vulnerable to the faint light outside, yet Shaw holds firm and Root presses tight.

 

Shaw leans down and lets her head rest against the other woman’s chest for one short moment, feeling the heartbeat elevating but _there._ Root whimpers out loud when she wraps her mouth around one of her rosy, peaked nipples, and for the life of her, Sameen’s lost count of how many things she yearns for.

 

Maybe the way Root’s back archs when she flicks her tongue and cups her other breast, leaving the wetness dry in the heat between them. Or her short, shallow breaths as Sameen puts pressure on her breast with her teeth and forces her hips upwards in a tempo that has Root banging her head back in pleasure.

 

Leaving one hand steady on Root’s thigh around her to keep the woman steady, Shaw finally lets her other one roam, track a path down Root’s ribs and come to settle in between them. Root whimpers at the contact, her pupils dilating but the white in her eyes bathed in crystal and tears.

 

“Don’t look away,” she says, and Shaw’s eyes fleet in between hers, spotting the raw honesty and want amongst a million other emotions that Sameen could have never _dreamed_ of understanding.

 

“Don’t look away.” Root whispers again, leaning forward and resting her forehead against her, trapping the Shaw’s palm in between them in return. Sameen feels her strength wither, struggles to clutch onto Root, but she won’t allow her to slip.

 

So she stares deep into Root’s dark orbs, rests one hand next to Root’s head on the glass, and pushes, pushes until Root’s back is plastered on the window behind her and Shaw’s body is flush against her. She’s holding Root up just by sheer will.

 

She doesn’t wanna tease, not now, not when _she’s_ looking at her like that, as if the world could tumble down and it’d still be okay as long as Sameen was just here with her. Her fingers flex against Root and she moans, deeply, unrestrained, right before Shaw digs through the wetness and drives them inside, a cry emitting from Root and hands leaving angry red streaks against her skin.

 

She thrusts with nothing holding her back, her nose tickling Root’s damp cheek every time she follows the beat of their newly set rhythm, but never breaks eye contact. Root’s whole body contracts, sensual up and downs of her hips to match Shaw’s fingers, and erratic gasps in Shaw’s ears.

 

(How could she ever have thought she can escape _her?)_

 

Shaw thrusts hard, adding a finger and at the wanton whine that escapes Root, she loses it, growls and forces herlself even further. Root is looking her under her lashes, half – lidded eyes partly covered from the hair glued to her skin, drops of sweat traveling down the delicate edge of her jawline to fuse with Shaw’s arm as she drives her to the edge.

 

She can feel it building up inside her as well, thinking, as Root furrows her eyebrows and her pants complement Sameen’s thrusts, that this might be the day she loses everything she tried to rebuild. There’s so much emotion, threatening to take over, so much… so _much._

The light blue glow of the sky floods through the unguarded windows, casting lights on Root’s heaving outlines, mahogany hair cascading down her pale, marble skin, and Sameen swears to any God ;

 

 As the woman in front of her screams and shouts and she feels her own self groan deep and guttural, collapsing on the ground with _her_ still tucked safely in her arms, that she has never seen anything more beautiful.

 

* * *

 

 

“Promise me you’ll be here.”

 

With fingertips of flames, Root gazes up at her and leaves them graze her face, up the side of her sharp cheekbones and towards her sculptured eyebrows. Sameen swallows hard against the gesture and opts to look at the arms currently cradling Root between her legs, the window cold and moisterous on her back. She thinks about all the reasons she shouldn’t, all the reasons she should be back in New York and fighting.

 

Because that is what Root demands of her, is it not?

 

That she stays on the sidelines, far away from the war, so that she’ll never get hurt again. That she waits it out, watches everyone die but do nothing about it.

 

“Will you even come back?” She asks, because really, will anything matter if the woman that’s been keeping her alive dies?

 

Root smiles sadly but doesn’t reply, burying her head underneath Shaw’s chin and nuzzling in her neck.

 

(Root will be the death of her.)

 

“Maybe someday.” She whispers.

 

_(It’ll be the most bittersweet death of all.)_

 

* * *

 

 

At the end of Christmas, Root leaves.

 

Kisses Shaw before she gets on the train, whispers a broken goodbye and never looks back.

 

At the end of Christmas _Sameen Shaw_ falls, but thinks she’s never stood so high.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for everyone who read and supported, and I'm rather curious ;
> 
> Perhaps everyone who read this could drop a comment so that I could meet you?
> 
> Thanks again.


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